CMS wants to know if the CPT coding monopoly is hurting patient care

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has opened a formal request for information (RFI) questioning the Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) coding system that determines how physicians bill Medicare. Buried in the draft 2027 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule, the request examines the American Medical Association's (AMA) six-decade role in writing and pricing CPT codes, and asks whether that arrangement, unchanged since Congress passed HIPAA in 1996, still serves patients or practices. The following slides trace how CPT became federal law's default coding standard, the financial conflict of interest regulators have flagged for decades, and the five questions CMS wants physicians to answer directly.